Do you remember the days of researching newspaper archives using microfiche? It wasn’t all that long ago that scouring newspapers was a painful process. I remember having to pull film reels from drawers at the library, with a window of dates in mind. The searching took ages. It never failed I'd get the machine with a light about to die, and then I’d have to maneuver wheel-to-roll through film and scan….scan….scan for articles related to my topic. If I lucked out I found something, which meant dropping a quarter and getting an almost-impossible-to-read print.

Did I say painful? How about torture?

Welcome to the modern era, and another technology gift to make research SO much easier. If you're working on family history, or any kind of project requiring searching old newspapers, you are in luck. From the comfort of your computer, anywhere you’d like to work, you can access Newspapers.com.

I can't overstate how this tool has changed my life and work as a personal historian. Time matters. I can’t get it back, and I need as much of it as possible to get to the finish of a project. Now, with only keywords and any range of dates, I can hone in on relevant articles to my search. It’s the miracle of almost instant gratification that still makes me swoon.

The best deal is that Newspapers.com permits me to take their archive for a free trial, which is how I got hooked. Now, I gladly pay the affordable annual fee to have research power at my fingertips. I feel powerful, almost smug in my savvy searches—all made possible because of Newspapers.com.